April 7, 2017
Donald McGahn II
White House Counsel
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Re: Legal Opinion for April 6, 2017 Military Action
Dear Mr. McGahn,
We write to request that you publicly disclose the legal opinion justifying the President’s
authority to order military strikes against the Syrian regime on April 6, 2017.
We are all horrified by the atrocities that have been committed against the people of Syria
for far too long. But however the United States responds to these brutal acts must be
rooted in domestic and international law.
As you know, our founders wisely wrote into the Constitution a separation of powers
precisely to prevent any President from unilaterally wielding the might of the world’s
greatest military or marching the nation to war without the input of the American people.
Over many decades, Presidents of both parties have pushed the limits of their powers, but
any President taking military action must root it in sound legal authority derived from the
Constitution or Congress.
The American people are entitled to know what justification President Trump used, and
to understand that justification immediately in order to hold a proper democratic
deliberation about the exercise of this awesome power and what may come next.
There is no reason why releasing this legal opinion would reveal classified information
since the President has already said what the purpose of the mission was and what it was
in response to. And because the operation is already complete, there is no risk that
release of the legal opinion justifying it would interfere with an active operation.
It is therefore incumbent upon the White House to share the legal authority and rationale,
including who provided the legal advice and who was consulted, because that is only way
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in a democracy for citizens and other branches of government to assess the actions that
have been undertaken on our behalf.
As we expect the President will comply with the War Powers Resolution and notify
Congress of his military actions by the evening of April 8, 2017, 48 hours after these
strikes were launched, we request that the legal opinion be made public by that time as
well in order to allow Congress to consider it as they consider how to exercise their coequal role in this serious matter.
On the very anniversary of America’s entry into World War I, we cannot become a nation
in which one man wields the most powerful weapons ever known outside of any legal
constraints.
Sincerely,
Ian Bassin
Executive Director
PO Box 170521, Brooklyn, New York 11217
[email protected]